90-day deadline for poorest of poor

THERMAL, RIVERSIDE COUNTY Judge orders cleanup of trailer park home to Mexican Indians

David Kelly, Los Angeles Times

Published 4:00 am, Friday, May 2, 2008

Photo: Francine Orr, TPN

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A Purepechan dancer wears hand-embroidered clothing in the dusty streets of Duroville. They're a hardworking people, but work is now scarce: Families in which husband and wife work expect to earn only about $9,000 this year. Illustrates DUROVILLE (category a) by David Kelly (c) 2008, Los Angeles Times. Moved Monday, April 28, 2008. (MUST CREDIT: Los Angeles Times photo by Francine Orr.) less

A Purepechan dancer wears hand-embroidered clothing in the dusty streets of Duroville. They're a hardworking people, but work is now scarce: Families in which husband and wife work expect to earn only about ... more

Photo: Francine Orr, TPN

90-day deadline for poorest of poor

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Here in the sprawling, forlorn trailer park called Duroville, hope is as fleeting as the wind and fragile as a butterfly. It can arise suddenly, only to be crushed beneath the daily cares and fears of a people isolated by geography, language and discrimination.

For Leobardo Jimenez, hope came with the recent birth of a son, a boy he prays can live a different life. "I want him to be somebody important," Jimenez said, 3-week-old Estaban peering up from a swing. "I would like my children to become lawyers who can speak directly to people and defend those like us who can't defend themselves."

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In the Coachella Valley, where the chasm between rich and poor is especially wide, Jimenez occupies the economic ladder's lowest rung. He is a Purepecha, an indigenous Indian from the Mexican state of Michoacan.

They found Mecca

In the 1970s, Purepechas began leaving the cool volcanic highlands of the Mexican city of Ocumicho for the parched town of Mecca, a few miles from the Salton Sea. They brought little more than strong backs and a powerful Roman Catholic faith. Few could speak Spanish or English. Their lack of education and tendency to marry as young as 13 helped ensure lives of poverty.

As time went on, more and more moved into the notoriously run-down Duroville trailer park on the Torres Martinez Reservation in Thermal. The park gradually became a regional capital for the Purepecha.

But its future is in doubt.

A federal judge ruled Monday that the mobile home park could stay open if it made 20 critical changes, including hiring contractors to upgrade its decrepit water, sewage and electrical systems. It must make the changes within 90 days.

'They like it here'

"They are the poorest of the poor," she said. "But this is the center of Purepecha life, and they like it here."

The Purepecha are an ancient people with unknown origins and a language unrelated to any other, experts say.

They built a highly militarized empire, the only one to fend off the rapacious Aztecs. Like other Mesoamericans, they erected stone temples and worshiped an elaborate pantheon of deities. The Spaniards crushed their empire around 1530, impoverishing and enslaving them. Yet attempts to extinguish the culture failed.

As a people, they are conservative, intensely religious and wary of authority. Much of their cautious world view comes from experience with the Spaniards and the Mexican government.

Leaders of Duroville say as many as 2,000 of the estimated 3,000 residents are Purepecha.

"We came here because we could own our own home and be around our own people, which makes us feel more comfortable," said Jose Clemente Zacarias, 50.

Many tell stories of discrimination and say other Mexicans call them "dirty" or "stupid Indians."

Now an honors student

Maximiliano Felipe, 16, came to the United States from Ocumicho at age 7 and ended up at Oasis Elementary School in Thermal, unable to speak English or Spanish.

"I remember the teacher saying, 'Bring me the chair,' and I had no idea what she was talking about," said Felipe, now a high school honors student. "Some of the other kids called me 'chaca,' which is considered an insult. I know people who are Purepecha who pretend they are not because they remember being called names when they were young."

The word "chaca" is thought to mock the sound of the Purepecha (pronounced poo-RAY-pecha) language.

Appetite for work

"In Mexico, there is a long prejudice against indigenous groups, especially those that don't speak Spanish," he said. "The Purepecha start out poor and put up with things others never would. They have a real appetite for work. Forty hours isn't enough. I know people who leave 40-hour-a-week jobs because they want 60 hours or more."

Communities like Duroville, Anderson said, allow the Purepecha to live largely free of harassment.

"If they close this park, it will probably destroy the Purepecha culture here," said Adolfo Basilio, 50, a curandero whose trailer is crammed with elixirs and well-worn books of handwritten incantations. "Everyone came here with the idea of making money and then going back, but that didn't happen."

Last year's cold snap stunted this year's crops, leaving much less work. The housing slowdown has sent construction workers into the fields, heightening job competition.

Husband, wife $9,000 a year

Many Purepechas now work barely four hours a day. Families in which husband and wife work expect to earn about $9,000 this year. Teachers say some Purepecha pupils get their only full meal at school. According to park managers, residents are more than $300,000 behind in rent payments.

Jimenez, 33, said he picked lemons for six hours one day, earning $40. He was lucky. Others made $20. He is two months behind on his $275 rent.

"It's a very painful time for us now, and the men are worried that they can't make a living and provide for their families," he said. "Two times they have cut off my lights, and now they say they will cut off the water."

Two-bedroom trailer

Jimenez left Ocumicho in 1992, taking a truck to Mexicali and crossing the mountains near Tecate. Jimenez lives with his three children and wife, Elvia, in a neat two-bedroom trailer - parents in one bedroom, children in the other. He is unaccustomed to revealing his thoughts to strangers, but he's clearly anxious.

Without Sister Williams, he said, the Purepechas would be cut off from the outside world.

"There is a lot of ignorance about our situation," he said in Spanish. "We don't understand a lot of things, and we feel very alone. When we try to tell someone, we are always humiliated because they don't understand us. Others don't care because we are just Indians. Wherever I go, and people ask where I am from, I tell them I am Purepecha and I have a language and a culture and a history."

The Rev. Eliseo Coronel Lucas of Our Lady of Guadalupe Sanctuary in Mecca said his church was helping pay many rent and utility bills. The church holds yard sales every Sunday to raise money.

"We are trying to open our arms and hearts to them and find their needs," Lucas said. "We want to acculturate them into the larger society."

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